The other women

When a political sex scandal breaks, everyone involved faces unforgiving media scrutiny and severe embarrassment. But while the politician and his family can lose their public standing, there’s one person whose future could go either way: the other woman.

It’s too soon to tell what fate has in store for former campaign staffer Cynthia Hampton, who had an extramarital affair with Sen. John Ensign. But if history is any lesson, her star could rise brilliantly or fall hard.

Story Continued Below

The end of the affair has been a launching pad of sorts for mistresses of scandals past, triggering a new career and a desire to be known as something more than just a lawmaker’s former fling. More than two decades ago, model Donna Rice Hughes was thrust into the spotlight when a photo of her sitting on the lap of married Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart caused him to drop out of the race. She also lost her job with a pharmaceutical company and all but disappeared for nearly seven years.

She is now an internationally known Internet safety expert and president of Enough Is Enough, an organization that fights child pornography. She has testified before Congress several times, co-authored a book on child Internet safety and served as an expert on the “Dateline NBC” series “To Catch a Predator.”

Less than a decade after the scandal broke, Hughes said she was working side by side with veteran Capitol Hill lawmakers who knew her only as a top authority on child Internet safety, never realizing that she was the woman behind the Hart scandal.

“I made a decision that I really wanted all of the pain and experience to count for something bigger than me,” Hughes told POLITICO. “I was able to use that public platform I had to help put an issue on the map that no one was even aware of. That was a wonderful blessing in disguise, to see how a platform that came about because of a very difficult time in my life could then be used to benefit children and families.”

According to New York-based psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, who has treated everyone from high-end mistresses to high-end call girls, women in these situations need to reshape their identity. “I always encourage people to define who they are — other than the other woman. Who are you? Are you a scholar, a professor, a loving daughter, an athlete? If you’re not the other woman, who are you? Tap into that.”

It would seem that Ashley Alexandra Dupre, who was snared in a scandal with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, seems to be following that advice. The former $4,000 call girl caused an upset when she appeared at New York Fashion Week this year, and she is reportedly working on an album and film opportunities. She’s also blogging and has turned down offers to appear in Playboy and Penthouse. “I’ve made more mistakes than most people make in a lifetime,” she wrote earlier this year on her Global Grind blog. “I am proud of myself for going through each phase of my life and wanting to take that next step, even if it was the wrong step.”